The present invention relates to a novel hybrid plant named xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99 and belonging to the family Iridaceae. The novel plant being a hybrid, has been developed in a breeding program. The novel plant xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99 is propagated vegetatively by corms and hence can be maintained as a stable genotype. The plant of the invention is an ornamental plant widely cultivated for beautiful flowers which are of commercial and export value.
The Latin name of the novel hybrid plant of the present invention is Gladiolus sp. 
The seedling named xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99 produced one corm and 11 cormels in the first year after harvesting. The corm and cormels were sown in a field during the next growing season. The cornmels became flowering size corms within a year. Again in the next year corms and cormels were sown in a field to produce a large number of corms and cormels. This process was repeated in subsequent years to increase the corm and cormel population.
The above method is the asexual reproduction used to propagate xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99.
The hybrid xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99 has remained stable and uniform for its morphological characters and showed consistency in performance for various growth and flowering parameters during its evaluation and vegetative multiplication since 1992. Throughout the evaluation period of xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99 no variants were found from the normal population. The genotype xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99 was bred at the Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (IHBT) under the program of development of new varieties of gladiolus.
The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of gladiolus, a member of the Gladiolus genus. The novel plant is the hybrid between the gladiolus plants Green Woodpecker and Oscar which are hybrid varieties. The Green Woodpecker and Oscar hybrid varieties have been in cultivation in India for more than 20 years and are believed to be un-patented in the United States. Additionally, the Green Woodpecker and Oscar hybrid varieties are not known to be the subject of any currently pending U.S. patent applications.
Gladiolus is one of the important cut flowers throughout the world. The commercial cultivation is wide spread in temperate, tropical and subtropical climates. The demand of new varieties with better color, quality flowers, and planting materials is always existing in the floriculture trade.
The modern garden cultivators gladiolus come from diverse genetic parentages. It has cumulative heterozygosity for many characters inherent with complex genetic constitution. In gladiolus, diverse parents are crossed together and the cultivars and the species that differ widely in chromosome numbers are also cross-fertile. In the present invention, the desirable strains obtained in F1 generation were perpetuated vegetatively without being segregated in the following generations, so that the cultivars which are available today may be F2, F3 to F8 or so of a particular cross further blended with some extra parents at nearly every generation. Thus they are not allowed to segregate freely in further generations because it is desirable to grow the plants asexually. Because of this reason, now the available modern cultivars have become so complex that the offspring obtained by crossing them, even two seedlings, do not appear similar [(Misra, 1975) Gladiolus Br. Assn. Newsletter, No. 12, pp. 2-5].
The Applicants collected germplasm of different cultivars and hybrid varieties of gladiolus from National Botanical Research Institute Lucknow, India as per the list of gladiolus cultivars grown in India and described in the bulletin of xe2x80x98gladiolusxe2x80x99 Economic Botany Information Service by Sharma et al. published by the Director National Botanical Research Institute Lucknow, 1988. Germplasm of gladiolus was also collected from Netherlands in 1991 and various nurseries of Kalimpong, Darjeeling, West Bengal, India. The record of the collected germplasm of gladiolus was maintained in the accession register of the Floriculture Division of the Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (IHBT), Palampur, India.
The applicants initiated a breeding program to develop better types of gladiolus hybrids suitable to wide range of climatic conditions, and having wide range of characteristics such as better color, increased number of florets and spike length as per the international standards, better yield of corms and cormels, tolerant to the common diseases etc. The collected germplasm of gladiolus was planted in the experimental field of IHBT for their propagation and multiplication. In this breeding programme conventional breeding method (hybridization) was used. More than 100 cross combinations were made by using distinct varieties such as Oscar, Jester, Snow Princess, Eurovision, Ballerina, King Liar, Cherry Blossom, Her Majesty, Green woodpecker, Friendship, Vink""s Glory, Aldebaran, Red Beauty, Top Brass, Copper King, Bonfire, White Goddess, Sunny Boy, Tropic Sea and Friendship Pink etc.
Flower color description of some of the parentage as described in NAGC Bulletin.
Oscar: Turkey red, throat blotched sulphur yellow.
Green Woodpecker: Pea green, throat blotched pea green spotted ruby red.
Eurovision: Signal red, throat streaked pea green.
Friendship pink: Dawn pink, throat blotched pea green having splashes ruby red.
Aldebaran: Straw yellow and throat bloched signal red.
As the aim is the production of seed of known parentage, emasculation in first three flowers in a selected spike is done before the opening of the flowers and stigma becomes receptive. Anthers are removed carefully from each flower. Emasculated flowers were covered with butter paper bags used for breeding purposes. Pollination was done in the emasculated flowers next day morning with in 24-30 hours with the pollens of the desired parents in the month of April-May 1991. The seeds were collected from mature pods in the month of August-September and were sown in beds under open field conditions and covered with dry grasses for moisture preservation in December 1991. The resultant seedlings were space planted in the field at Palampur in March-April 1992.
Many seedlings came out from a single cross combination. These plants were critically evaluated and tagged as per the desired color combinations, growth and flowering parameters. The corn and cormels of the selected hybrid plants were replanted continuously four years in the filed for further evaluation and multiplications. Based on the superior performance for attractive color combination, compactness of flower spike, number of flowers per spike, length of flower spike, number of corm and cormels per plant evaluation and selection of superior quality hybrids were made.
Thus, the breeding program involved hybridization of commonly available gladiolus plants. In other words, the hybrids were developed by crossing parental genotypes involving sexual hybridization in the breeding program.
The program yielded a number of hybrid plants out of which one genotype, namely IHBT-GH-425, was selected and christened as xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99. This plant was found to have new color, flower size, number of florets per spikes, length of flower spikes, better yield of corm and cormels and less prone to common diseases. Growing the plant on a commercial scale offers the horticulturists an improved and new variety, which can be commercially cultivated.
Thus, the invention provides a new genotype christened as xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99. This plant has been developed through planned breeding experiments conducted at Institute of Himalayan Resources, (IHBT) Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, India with defined aim to develop superior gladiolus genotypes. For this purpose, gladiolus varieties were collected from different sources and grown in the fields at Palampur, India for facilitating breeding program. The emasculation and pollination in different varieties were carried out during the months of April-May 1991. The seeds were collected in July-August 1991 and sown in beds under open field conditions and covered with dry grasses in December 1991. The resultant seedlings were space planted in the field at Palampur in March-April 1992. The corms and cormels of surviving hybrid plants were replanted continuously four years for screening and multiplication.
Based on the superior performance for attractive color combination, compactness of flower spikes, number of flowers per spikes, length of flower spikes, number of flowers remains open at a time, number of corm and cormel production per plant, the plant of this invention, the xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99, was selected for further observation and evaluation.
Considering the superior characteristics like excellent color, number of flowers, compactness of flower spikes, plant height, ruffled-ness of flower petals, regeneration potential and freedom from common diseases, it was asexually reproduced through corm and cormels to maintain purity.
The selected hybrid was christened as xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99 and grown at row distance of 1 feet and plant to plant distance of 6 inches for four consecutive years to study its growth and flowering performance and multiplication. Data were recorded on randomly selected twenty plants every year. The xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99 maintained uniformity in its growth and flowering performance.
With regard to the age and the growing conditions of the xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99, the present hybrid was raised in the calendar year 1991 through conventional breeding and the age of the hybrid is presently in excess of ten years. The hybrid was grown under open field conditions in the Palampur area of Himachal Pradesh. The altitude of the Palampur area is about 1300 meters above sea level. The climate zone of the region is sub-humid, sub-temperate, having maximum and minimum average temperatures of 30xc2x0 C. and 10xc2x0 C. The average annual rainfall in the region is approximately 250 cm.
The hybrid xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99 has remained stable and uniform for its morphological characters and showed consistency in performance for various growth and flowering parameters during its evaluation and vegetative multiplication since 1992. Throughout the evaluation period of xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99 no variants were found from the normal population.
The genotype xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99 possesses decorative type flowers of Capsicum red (RHS-33A) with Chartreuse yellow (RHS-2D) color on lip petals. The flower petals are slightly ruffled which is quite clear from FIG. 1.
The genotype xe2x80x98Palampur Queenxe2x80x99 is distinct in regeneration potential.